emil@rochester.UUCP (08/13/85)
From: Emil Rainero <emil>
Does anyone have any figures on the number of missing children each year?
I saw a lot of trailer trucks with pictures of missing children. I also
see pictures on milk cartons and newspapers. Does anyone know what percentage
of the missing are runaway/kidnapped/killed/etc? I thought of a fairly simple
(read costly) way of finding some of the missing children. If a means of child
identification (finger prints?, foot prints, retina, whatever) was developed,
having schools send in all new students identification to some place
(FBI, Police, kidnapping is a federal offense!!!), a lot might be found.
Sure it requires money, what doesn't. If we can check for criminals we can
check for kids. After all, which is more important.
Emil Rainero
UUCP: (..!{allegra, decvax, seismo}!rochester!emil)
ARPA: emil@rochester.arpa
USmail: Emil Rainero, Dept. of Comp. Sci., U. of Rochester, NY 14627.
Phone: Office: (716) 275-5365 Home: (716) 424-5016alonso@princeton.UUCP (Rafael Alonso) (08/16/85)
> From: Emil Rainero <emil> > Does anyone have any figures on the number of missing children each year? From U.S. News and World Report (8/19/85): Statistics are aproximate. Missing children: 1.1 - 1.5 million per year Runaways (between 13 and 19 years old): ~90% of all missing children Runaways returning home voluntarily within a week: 70% Kidnapped by noncustodial parent: 100,000 per year Kidnapped by nonfamily members: 4,000 - 7,000 per year Kidnapped by total strangers: ~1,000 per year Long term missing: 200,000 Other points made in the article: - Children abducted by strangers are seldom recovered alive after 48 hours. - Trailways will give free tickets to returning runaways. - Many of the children abducted by a parent are abused by that parent.
oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) (08/21/85)
In article <1089@princeton.UUCP> alonso@princeton.UUCP (Rafael Alonso) writes: >> From: Emil Rainero <emil> >> Does anyone have any figures on the number of missing children each year? > >From U.S. News and World Report (8/19/85): >Statistics are aproximate. > >Missing children: 1.1 - 1.5 million per year >Runaways (between 13 and 19 years old): ~90% of all missing children >Runaways returning home voluntarily within a week: 70% >Kidnapped by noncustodial parent: 100,000 per year >Kidnapped by nonfamily members: 4,000 - 7,000 per year >Kidnapped by total strangers: ~1,000 per year >Long term missing: 200,000 > >Other points made in the article: >- Children abducted by strangers are seldom recovered alive after 48 hours. >- Trailways will give free tickets to returning runaways. >- Many of the children abducted by a parent are abused by that parent. While concern for missing children is never inappropriate, I want to point out that perhaps this, like the national hysteria over child care center sexual abuse, is becoming a bit of a fad crisis. The problem, of course, is one of jumbled an misapplied statistics. If your local library has a newspaper morgue, look up the May 12 Denver Post, where Louis Kilzer writes : "Although Colorado parents are waiting in line to have their children fingerprinted and kids across the state are being taught the `danger of strangers,` law enforcement officials say they can find no evidence of widespread abductions in Colorado. In fact, the actual cases are so rare that some officials believe only a handful happen in the state each year. At the Colorado Bureau of Investigation`s crime information center, director Gray Buckley could not name more than three cases in the state where authorities believe missing children were kidnapped by strangers. Ninety five percent of the missing children were runaways, he estimated... At first glance, Denver would appear to be a dangerous place for children. There were 1,579 missing children reports filed last year. Colorado appears equally threatening. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation recorded 14,900 children as missing last year. But when officials are asked about the numbers, they tell a story of inflated and misunderstood figures....[quotes from law enforcement people saying they don`t know of hardly any cases]... Why then the huge figures? Primarily, it is the way the records are kept. First, the missing children figures include cases of suspected runaways...which make up 90 to 99% of the total. Indeed, some don`t return home and can meet harm on the street. They pose a real problem for society. However...9 out of 10 return home, most within a few days. Another problem is that the state reports contain numerous cases of chronic, repeat runaways....Even though it is the same child running away, each time he or she leaves, it is counted as a separate case in the state`s computer... The result: Since 1965, the CBI [Colorado Bureau of Investigation] has records of 887 unsolved missing children cases in Colorado. The agency believes that 95% of those are suspected runaways. (1) Also, in the same issue of the Denver Post, Diana Griego and Louis Kilzer point out that, according to FBI reports, there are fewer than 100 active cases nationwide of children taken by strangers. The article quotes some of the more wild claims made by so-called childrens groups and advocates: Child Find quoted a figure of 50,000 children abducted by strangers, though Carolyn Zogg, the associate director of Child Find admitted the figure was "pulled out of a hat." Senator Paul Simon, D-Ill in a letter to fellow members of Congress said that "150,000 or more [children] are taken by estranged parents, thousands of others are abducted by strangers who want children for prostitution, child pornography or other exploitative purpose. Some 4,000 are later found dead..." Those deaths would be four times the number of all homicides committed against children under 15 in the United States.(2) My contacts with the SBI (State Bureau of Investigation) in North Carolina and discussions with other law enforcement officials indicate that the low numbers for Colorado are very similar to ours in North Carolina. Ostensibly, a number of the missing children and adults will die and never be found. I talked to Dr. Page Hudson, Chief Medical Examiner for North Carolina and a member of the Missing Children Program Committee of the College of American Pathologists, and we could only come up with three or four cases of bodies of unidentified children which had come under our jurisdiction in the past 8 or 10 years which had stayed unidentified for a long period of time. North Carolina is about the 10th most populous state in the union, and our office investigates essentially all deaths outside of hospitals (and many in hospitals) which occur in the state. Still, any lost child is a tragedy, and because of the low numbers, the large distances and jumbled jurisdictions involved in looking for and identifying missing children. A national center for clearing data is necessary, and thanks to the efforts of Sens Orin Hatch (R-Utah), Strom Thurmond (R-SC), Bill Bradley (D-NJ), Paula Hawkins (R-Fla), Arlen Specter (R-Pa), and Rep Paul Simon (D-Ill), the Missing Children`s Act of 1982 was passed which allowed local agencies to use the FBI National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Unidentified and Missing Person Files, which had been previously established in 1975.(3) The College of American Pathologists has also established a program within the pathology community to coordinate , provide training for, and obtain meaningful data from physicians, and assist families and law enforcement personnel in gathering data for inclusion in the NCIC files.(4) As of 1/01/85, there were 757 total cases of unidentified people, 755 deceased non-catastrophe, 1 deceased catastrophe, 1 living. Of these, 64 died due to accident (8.5%), 333 homicide (44.0%), 27 natural causes (3.6%), 27 suicide (3.6), 306 unknown (40.4). 98 bodies were found nationwide in 1984. (5) Frankly, from reading the minutes, I can't tell how many of these are children. There are 80 entrants in the National Child Safety Council Abducted Children Directory. The National Child Safety Council is a non-profit organization with also acts as a private clearing house, and is based in Jackson, Michigan. (6) I would suggest that anyone who has serious questions about the matter either write or call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This is a clearing house for information about missing children which works closely with the US Department of Justice. It's address is: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children 1835 K Street N.W. Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20006 J. Howell is the executive director of the outfit, and has a pretty good rep in the business. I don't have their phone number handy, but I know that they would love to answer questions from interested citizens. The National Child Safety Council is at P.O. Box 986 Jackson, Michigan They have a hotline for people who can identify a missing child at 1-800-843-5678. Their main number is (202) 634-9821. They would probably be willing to answer questions as well. The state law enforcement agency for your state (ususally called the NAME OF STATE Bureau of Investigation) is also a good source for data, and they ususally have public relations people whose job is to field these kinds of questions. Its usually a lot more fun to get asked a question by a citizen than by the press, since you don't have to be on your guard as much. References : 1) Kilzer, L. The Truth About Missing Kids. The Sunday Denver Post, May 12, 1985. pg 1-A. 2) Griego, D, and Kilzer, L. Exaggerated statistics stir national paranoia. The Sunday Denver Post, May 12, 1985 (I think - the date was not clear on my copy). pg 1-A, pg 12-A. 3) Fierro, MF, and Bishop DR. New hope for identifying the unidentified: The National Crime Information Center unidentified person/ missing person files. American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology 5:349-371,1984. 4) Howell, J. Behind the tragedy there`s hope, in the new National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Pathologist. 39:58-61, May, 1985. 5) Minutes of the March 1, 1985 meeting of the Missing Children Program Committee Meeting of the College of American Pathologists. unpublished. 6) NCSC Abducted Child Directory, information verified 2-1-85. Bill Oliver Asst. Chief Medical Examiner State of North Carolina The opinions expressed above are those of the author and should not be considered those of any other official, employee, Office, or Agency of the State of North Carolina.
oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) (08/21/85)
In article <182@unc.unc.UUCP> oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) writes: > >Still, any lost child is a tragedy, and because of the low >numbers, the large distances and jumbled >jurisdictions involved in looking for and identifying missing children. >A national center for clearing data is necessary, and thanks to the > >Bill Oliver >Asst. Chief Medical Examiner >State of North Carolina > Ah! The mad word processor demon strikes again. That should read: Still, any lost child is a tragedy, and because of the low numbers, the large distances and jumbled jurisdictions involved in looking for and identifying missing children, a national center for clearing data is necessary. Thanks to the Sorry, Bill Oliver